Saving Lives: The Ultimate Defined Benefit

Lewis Fein

Jan 16, 2018

We need a more expansive definition of the benefits workers should have, in addition to the rewards they must receive. These benefits transcend material things like health insurance, pensions, and retirement security, because we need a system that is as proactive as it is reactive; that educates people with the same power by which it ensures recipients get their checks or dividends; that inspires individuals to know something – to do something – rather than to expect more of the same. It is, therefore, beneficial to teach workers how to not only care for themselves but how to save others from potentially life-threatening emergencies. I refer, specifically, to the life support training that every American should possess.

This approach to defined benefits may be – indeed, it is – a generous interpretation of the term. But it is a nonetheless indispensable one, because we cannot have communities that do not know how to perform, and cannot afford not to know how to deliver, the life support training that can save a person from otherwise almost certain death.

If we follow the example of the Disque Foundation, which works with underserved communities at home and abroad, we can offer the ultimate benefit. We can define its importance and underscore its urgency, while also explaining (as if any explanation is necessary) its relevance to people of all interests and backgrounds. In so doing, we will broaden the discussion about defined benefits; we will begin a national conversation about this topic, where we can train men and women to help their respective communities and better the entire nation.

Consider, then, this topic in the form of a question: Why should workers not have a health care program that allows them to do for others what no one else in the same situation, given the constraints of time and the precarious threshold between life and death, can provide at that very moment?

We need to create a culture that makes saving lives the priority it should be –– the priority it must be. The alternative is inaction, which is unacceptable both morally and medically because this training is not hard to master. Nor is it expensive to teach and practice.

Anything short of that standard is an insult to the ethics of justice and the efforts of doctors and nurses worldwide to promote life support training. Thus is it an exercise of incalculable worth and permanent value to every American. Therefore, saving lives is a matter of common sense and a matter of the highest importance.

Let us resolve to address this issue with energy and enthusiasm. Let us also decide to make sure we do not overlook any address; that we do not neglect those who most need our assistance; that we do not forget the neighborhoods and communities where people depend on our aid; that we do not leave anyone behind, period.

Life support training is our means of distributing benefits to all citizens.

It is our summons to action.

About the Author

Lewis Fein writes about a variety of health and wellness issues, in addition to pieces about technology, business, and management. Based in Southern California, you may email him at [email protected]